Solved Customize Installation Media Startup

C

CraigHB

I'd like to customize my installation media so it boots straight away into a login prompt. Then I'd like to be able to start the bsdinstall routine at the command line. That way the media can do double duty as recovery media and installation media while bypassing the boot menu. I haven't started trudging through the scripts to see what's involved. Are there some simple changes I can make to get that behavior?
 
I'm not getting any answers on this so I'd just as soon delete it, but I'll post on what I did in case anyone else has the same question.

Turns out all the scripting FreeBSD uses to automate startup of the installation is in one file by itself. All I had to do was mount the stick (da0p3) and delete ./etc/rc.local. Now it boots directly to a prompt. The installer can be started by typing bsdinstall at the command line. I also added a number of customizations to the image like skipping the boot loader menu.

What's excellent about the full FreeBSD stick image is it's essentially a complete operating system with all the capability of a normal base system. That's a luxury I've not seen with installer environments otherwise and I'll be making full use of it.
 
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